Brainstorm Cafe

just a nice skyline image before going into the lincoln tunnel (c) mark somple 2018

this morning I was looking at a photo of the deep space galaxies, and then I was looking at a diagram of an atom. I found it ironic that you could not have one without the other and the vast expanse of space, yet, who really knows what lies beyond the subatomic space and dimensions human can currently see? perhaps that is my bewilderment and frustration with humans for some reason thinking we are some super or Supremes species.

yesterday I have a few friends in an uproar worried about the planet. my position is that humans are doing what we are doing to ourselves and we can change, use a bit less, and quit the insanity of chasing shiny things and thinking we are so bright.

“but how will the planet survive?”

“the same way it has for 4-5 billion years. it moves, changes and evolves. human beings…well, we have a very real problem of obliterating ourselves, and only our actions and activities to blame.”

there is a very gray and odd space when you bring the intersection of science, religion, and spirituality into the realm of humans. the reality is we simply don’t know It all, and that is ok with me, we can learn and grow.

one area of growth or healing is it psychological or spiritual…is that the first has a human thing they can solve all their problems. the second is asking for help from a higher being to get us through this thing called life. sadly, there aren’t a lot of whole people that I have met on the planet that has done the work to heal themselves and have the ability to truly help others.

what I am seeing is a whole lot of people writing about advise and ways to tell people how to heal, that are just as screwed up as the rest of us. perhaps that is what I did learn 15 years ago when I met a man in the desert. “wow, the stuff they all are writing about in books, really does and can exist in humans…amazing!”

what it cost the man was giving up all the stuff of what we feel is a successful life and almost inverting Maslow ’s pyramid. (side note - try inverting it, put God first and watch how your life changes)

I stopped going to burning man many years ago when I saw so many tech folks dropping acid and taking drugs for an experience or trip outside of the life that was more about stock options and creating f*ck you wealth for a few. what is that? it is when one has so much money that they literally can pretty much do anything. how many handle that power well -I dare say is very few. what I lead to is more of a selfish view of the world than a selfless one. it also leads to people trying all sorts of things under the guise of new experiences and wrapping a label of some ethical or moral cause around it.

an example of that is some groups that want to drop some drugs as a religious belief. I am fine with it if they really are doing it for spiritual reasons, but it brings me to a place where I learned if you go out with nothing, and ingest nothing like that – you can get to the place and experiences that no words can describe

the other way, the empathogen way, or the drug way? it is an experience, yet, you are looking for an external element to somehow fix your internal elements. the other thing is I don’t think too many people really understand exactly what some of these things will and can do to them? I still remember the “you” show and the immersive cave…” the idea is to be so overwhelming that you don’t need any substances.”

perhaps the point I am finally getting to, is I am blown away by the number of medicines, anxiety and psychological medicines, and even illicit medicines people consume to medicate or intoxicate themselves. that is the word the triggered this writing, geneticists have found intoxicating behavior within the animal world and are trying to mimic it in the human world.

I think we have enough ways to get messed up, alter ourselves, and misconstrue taking a trip and labeling it spiritual. I still can’t grasp my head around the military wanting MDMA and Psilocybin to be for post-traumatic stress. if people are getting that sick because we send them off to lands to possibly get blown to bits and see the worst of humanity and many come back messed up. do you think it is a great thing for the human being desensitize one that killing another is a good idea?

another mystery to me is the death penalty where the cost of doing the act is so many time more expensive that simply putting someone in a cell -yet – sensationalism and justice are words politicians and I guess people like to hear?

but today, I am reading more and more press on the wonders of psychedelics with issues with depression, PTSD, , and Attention Deficit…I do know these solutions probably can and are something where there might be value in helping a few people in the population of many. what I usually see happening is the many who really don’t need it, want to take it and rationalize going on a trip as some spiritual and/or medical treatment.

it is not a thin line between using something for a medicine and the recreation of intoxication. I see the later being done more and more in the states these days. sit down, take a pill, have a trip…weeeeeeeee! now on a sad note, if you drive across the USA on a Friday night, you will witness the scourge of thinks like oxy and meth on the community. just fill up for gas at a local 7-11 and watch the people that for some reason congregate outside there.

as for the death penalty, I am trying to remember where in the new testament Jesus tells us to slaughter our enemies or take justice into our own hands with judging. (yeah, I know…I fail at that all the time…but I keep working on it each and every day.

“love everyone and leave the judging up to god” is something I learned in a guy who was not a preacher or a pastor on the street. these words hold more weight to me than much of what I hear being preached these days. in some respects, it is a bit like the psychedelics and trying to rationalize a trip as somehow medicinal. with a church, I see a lot of folks rationalizing how good they think/feel they are – but it is more a coverup as we all need a bit a work. but hey, this is a strange daily writing – as I have to run to help someone and I don’t have the time or the faculties with travel time grog in the brain today. I am sure there might be 2-3 individual topics worth writing about – you just got brain stew and a puzzle to wonder what I was talking about.

care to join me for a coffee?

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self." ~ Cyril Connolly

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